Personal items that once belonged to convicts in Tasmania have been discovered under the floorboards of the Penitentiary Chapel in Hobart.

Shane McLeod of the University of Western Australia re-examined 14 Norse burials in eastern England, and he concluded that there were more women among the Viking invaders than had been thought. “These results, six female Norse migrants and seven male, should caution against assuming that the great majority of Norse migrants were male,” he wrote in a study published in Early Medieval Europe.

Remnants of burned oak have been unearthed at the construction site of a grocery store in Scotland. Radiocarbon dates indicate the wood may have been burned during the Mesolithic period as a heat source. “The lack of any other Mesolithic dating on the site suggests that there was no settlement in the area, and that instead the hearth represents a temporary rest stop,” according to a report published by the Highland Council’s Historic Environment Record.

A man caught in the 2009 federal artifact trafficking sting in Utah has been sentenced to two years probation.

A large-scale excavation in Seattle could yield information about the city’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century residents. “Visually, it’s not the most compelling material,” said project manager Steve Denton.

University of Wyoming students are sharpening their digging skills at the Vore Buffalo Jump, which was used by five different American Indian groups between 1500 and 1800. “In those 300 years, they killed 10,000 to 20,000 bison. They are stacked up like a giant layer cake,” said archaeologist Charles Reher.

Meanwhile, children attending day camp at Appalachian State University learned that an archaeologist’s most important tool is a pencil.

Four ancient Buddhist caves have reportedly been destroyed during mining activities in central India.

Excavation of a monastery complex in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan has revealed a large statue of a seated Buddha.

A rare statue of the Roman emperor Caligula  was unearthed in a large nymphaeum south of Rome. The site was found when Italian police stopped looters from taking parts of the statue out of the country and archaeologists investigated the illegal dig.

A massive kiln was uncovered in South Carolina, at historic Pottersville. “When we arrived we thought we were looking for a groundhog kiln, but what we actually discovered was a kiln 105 feet in length,” said George Calfas of the University of Illinois.  Here’s some background information about the site.

In Montreal, archaeologists continue to look for traces of an early Canadian parliament building that was burned down by rioters in 1849.

Clean up of the BP oil spill has revealed archaeological artifacts along the Gulf Coast. “We’re filling in gaps. There is some pioneering archaeological work going on as a result of the oil spill,” said lead archaeologist Larry Murphy.

Residents of Madisonville, Louisiana, are looking for the grave of the town’s founder, Jean Baptiste Baham, but nothing has been found at the site of his eighteenth-century plantation.

A boulder bearing a petroglyph was returned to the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area in southern Nevada by helicopter. It had been stolen in 2008 by a real estate agent who put it in his front yard.

Are you part Neanderthal? A new study in the current issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution supports earlier findings that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred.